


The Feral

by 11dishwashers



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Cannibalism, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 16:15:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12461349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/11dishwashers/pseuds/11dishwashers
Summary: The cicada was so scorched it looked like a beetle or a paperweight. Dongyoung picked it up, one finger on its nose and the other where its wings would have shuttered with life, once. Taeyong's eyes widened at him, but he said nothing."So ugly," Dongyoung said, bringing it up to his face. "I'm starving.""Is it... is it heavy?"Dongyoung looked up at Taeyong, cicada touching his chin. "Yeah," he said, "Even without blood, its flesh is still heavy."





	The Feral

Taeyong had been the only one who listened to Dongyoung when he cried wolf. 

It began while filming the new season; they'd all piled into a truck in the early morning and arrived at the house in Paju. 

Taeyong stepped out from where the door was slid open, grooves in his flesh from where the seatbelt sat uncomfortably. It was a sunny day and the house seemed big. It was meant to be a treat, you could tell- the pool and the stocked kitchen, though they only had chunky foam mats on the floorboards to sleep on. He'd imagined someone carrying the beds out through the sliding doors at the side of the house that faced the road; how they were removed explicitly to not be slept in. There was no point in it, he thought. There'd be fights over mattresses but someone would sleep that night. Most of the time, they nodded off when the weather got too warm or too cold anyway, standing up or not. That was just how it was when you were starving yourself into thinly wrapped bones. 

The camera pointed at him, its lense dark blue. He smiled in some sort of way- it didn't matter what, someone would find it watchable- they'd say he wasn't wearing makeup that day, if they had to. He was wearing makeup, especially around the spots on his hairline. Most of the time it didn't bother him, until he rubbed his eyelids too much and they were exposed as pink, bags as a deep running purple. He was more handsome before debut, his father had said with something like wrath. He never called Taeyong pretty because the word made him spit. He never called anyone pretty- not Taeyong's sister or his mother, either. 

It was handsome. Everything was handsome in hindsight; the bruises on Taeyong's knees from playing football, the mud caking in his shoes, how he strayed from the scales yet never avoided them. You'd take it for granted. You really would. 

"This is the house," he said, starting to walk towards it. It stood short under its own extravagant roof, wooden beams seperating different sections of white wall. Though the sun had killed them in the van, the house cast such a long shadow that Taeyong was shivering as he got closer to the front door. He wasn't sure if he was still being filmed as his back was turned. 

Donghyuck said something about how old it looked, pulling his collar over his face a bit more, with the cold or something else. 

 

The insides were bare. Taeyong dropped his kit bag next to one of the foam mats, eyeing the green sheets- they looked like they'd been ironed right then and there. The thought of it crumbling with his imprint was too much to ask for- in the end he'd be outlined from limb to limb like a chalk drawing at the crime scene. He was awfully tired. Tired and hungry. 

Dongyoung took the mat next to him, searching through his bag for a comb. He'd slept with his face smushed to the window all day; his cheeks were bitten apart by the time he'd pulled off the glass to say hi to the camera. There had been a big, bronze tinted blob where his makeup rubbed off. If you had grabbed him by the neck and pushed hard enough, he'd cry until his mascara leaked off each individual eyelash, streaking down the windows shakily. There might be a lip print too, though it would probably be chapstick. All of them carried a tube in their pockets with them. 

Yuta was obsessed with exfoliating, too. He kept his skin stuff in this dark blue case where it'd remain until after filming each night, then he'd polish away at his dead cells with clear liquid on cotton swabs. 

Dongyoung took his comb out of the bag and one of its teeth was smashed from the journey. He flipped it from side to side, picking at the hairs with a finger and a thumb. "So," he said, the picked strands sticking to his black jeans- they looked gold. "What d'you think of the house?"

Taeyong looked at him. They weren't close enough to have such a tired conversation. The only answers would be generic and quick between them. "It's nice," he said mildly. 

The window was open; cold air would ruffle at the edges of sheets, lift them up and fray them. He could hear Sicheng outside talking big about the pool he had yet to see. Mark stuttered about something. The camera girl laughed and say, hey, we should add an effect later on. She spoke from behind her hand in hopes the microphones wouldn't pick her up. If they did, it was no big deal- everyone knew that the boys were never left to their own devices. They had a slew of witnesses to each calculated action, assistants, organisers, stylists who got so close. Then the ones they rarely saw- the graphic designers and faceless men that spoke of marketability. Those who watched each one of them for blips in their graphs, sales, popularity, reputation. 

Dongyoung bit his lip, clamping the blood and colour out of it. He had his comb as clean as bleach by then, it was left as hard, shiny plastic. Finally he dragged his teeth back into his mouth and combed at his fringe, just slightly. "Yeah," he said, "I guess it is nice."

Taeyong looked out the low hanging window, at the trees swaying in the wind. A cicada buzzed incessantly. 

 

They went out to the pool after eating sandwiches off of very fragile looking china plates. The dining room had been bare too, the exact amount of chairs set out in front of the long table. There had been an extra one, but one of the staff had propped the door open with it to let in the warm air, which came from the side of the house that wasn't dunked in shade. 

Taeyong's stomach was ridden with slippiness as he stood by the pool, from drinking soda on a near-empty stomach. 

The water surface was calm. Someone had cleaned out the gutters before they'd arrived, as there were no leaves stuck in the grates. It stank of chlorine and flip flop. 

_ Ah, I can't wait to swim, _ Jaehyun said, tugging at the hem of his shirt. The air was sticky with treesap, simmering heat. 

They were told they wouldn't swim on camera, mostly to hide their bodies. Taeyong thought that was pretty pointless too; didn't every human on Earth have a ribcage, a sternum, a spine? Didn't every human know what to expect? 

 

Taeyong figured, what the viewers saw was only twenty minutes of a whole four days spent on set. There was bound to be so much that slipped by them. When dinner was scathing and uncomfortable, the editors would maybe stitch in a shot from a different night- they'd ask the group to sit in the same places each time. Upper face shots would do. 

So there was a lot of stuff excluded from watching eyes. 

During a calm, Taeyong had sat at the base of a tree, calling home. Yuta came over and the cameras followed, then swerved away at the appearance of Taeyong anywhere near technology. Still, he sat, watching out over the rest of the trees. If he stretched his neck enough, he could see farmers' fields down the hill, with white blobs of cows. 

Something fell on his head after ten minutes of being still, and he shuddered and recoiled until it fell off his scalp, onto his lap. It was a great, big cicada with a hole burnt through its belly from the heat. 

He jumped up and cringed so hard that every part of him was a shuddering mess with disgust. 

Dongyoung came over then, no lenses in sight behind him. "They're everywhere, right?" he'd said, crouching down to inspect it. How he'd seen what had happened, Taeyong didn't know. 

The cicada was so scorched it looked like a beetle or a paperweight. Dongyoung picked it up, one finger on its nose and the other where its wings would have shuttered when it was alive and buzzing. Taeyongs eyes widened at him, but he said nothing. 

"So ugly," Dongyoung said, bringing it up to his face. "I'm starving."

"Is it... is it heavy?"

Dongyoung looked up at Taeyong, cicada touching his chin. "Yeah," he said, "Even without blood, its flesh is still heavy."

He didn't do anything other than scrutinise it, but you could tell something would happen if there was no moves made to stop it. Taeyong watched Dongyoung poke at its underbelly, pick a wing off. 

Donghyuck came down the hill, then, carrying a tub of orange slices. His face was worn but cheery. He'd be a better idol with time. He'd be the best. It was the way he carried himself- confident, without reminding himself of all the things they hadn't eaten or sold or savoured. "We're all at the pool since there's a break. Jaehyun has all these CDs from America, too," he said, offering the slices out. When Dongyoung took one, his fingers were black with insect blood that could be mistaken for shoe polisher. 

Taeyong snorted and took one too, it felt heavy in his hand, against his tongue. "Jaehyun and his CDs," he said, then followed Donghyuck up the hill. 

 

It was night when he really thought about it. It consisting of how Dongyoung held the cicada so close to his face, how dirty it was against his fingertips. How heavy with flesh(but not blood) it had looked. The burn looked seared and painful; incredibly so. 

If insects had true, bloody guts the way humans had, they'd have been pushing out of the wound, smelling rotten and spoiled. 

The mat was too hard on Taeyong's spine. He turned constantly, hearing the room fill up with snores. There was a long strip of paper hung up by the window, dozens of flies stuck to it. They shimmered like black beads under the moon, being carried as the paper was picked up with the breeze. It was another calm night in Paju; they had two more to go, after this. Then they'd pile back up into the van for the windy roads back to Seoul. 

A hand rested on his shoulderblade from behind him- he flipped over fast and found Dongyoung staring. Dongyoung staring and awake. 

He whispered, "you'd never believe me."

Taeyong felt his heart calm its pace down from his mild terror, though it was continuing, oddly enough. Something about how shallow Dongyoung's face looked under the moon. How flat, how bright and fitted on like a mask. "What is it?" asked Taeyong, pushing Dongyoung's hand away.

"Last night, a lady called out to me," Dongyoung said, voice packed with fear that had twisted itself into a mild giddiness. "From the hall. I went out and saw her."

Taeyong felt a sickness pouring out from his blood vessels, up at the top where his leg melded into his hips. "I don't believe you," he said. 

"I know!" Dongyoung whisper shouted, a bit frantically, "but she was there! And I bet she's out there right now, too."

Taeyong really, really felt sick. He turned on his back and watched the ceiling, tried to focus on Mark's light snores rather than anything... else. 

"She was wearing a black cloak and she told me, there's only one way to survive this. She said; eat them. Eat their flesh and drink their blood. Only then will you be fed and satisfied."

Taeyong felt his gut expand and contract, grow shallow and deep. He swallowed. "Shut up," he said. "Quit trying to scare me, asshole."

"It's true," said Dongyoung. "I've been  _ so hungry _ lately. I ate about a pound of woodlice from under the wooden steps earlier- you know the ones out front, by the taps, right- and I was still starving. Maybe I was actually hungrier than before, even. I need to be fed, Taeyong," he said, voice laced with pure desire. It was abhorrent- the kind where you felt your skin slide into place while hearing about, while reading.

Into place, out again. Never fitting to the joints. "You're sick," Taeyong said, weakly. He felt so, so cold. "Why are you telling me this?"

Dongyoung looked at him proper, at the dip in his chin that lead down to his windpipe that he  _ knew _ jutted out from under his skin. "You're a skeleton, Taeyong," he said. "No flesh at all. There's no point in eating you when I know you need to be fed, too."

Taeyong went red then, maybe with rage. He rarely had the capacity to feel such a thing, but when he did it brimmed so quick it overflowed. But he didn't move. He didn't jab at Dongyoung's open eyes with his fingernails. He said, "I'm going to sleep now. Good night, Dongyoung."

There was no response. 

The funny thing was, Taeyong couldn't sleep. In the hall, he heard the old piano keys moving, how the sounds phased through the thin walls and wooden doors. 

 

He woke up hungry. 

 

He went to bed starving. 

 

That night, while Taeyong starved with a mix of acceptance, desire and frustration, he ripped at Yuta's hamstrings until they tore off the muscles, through the already scraped back skin that bunched at his ankles. His veins were warm with the perseverance of a life, but they went cold from being exposed to the night air through the open window. 

Dongyoung pulled off a strip of muscle and licked up the blood before eating. "Not too bad," he said, crunching. "Better than insects, at least."

Taeyong hummed in agreement, sinking his teeth into the flesh. It smelled bitter yet tasted so sweet, like sugary mince. It was  _ delicious _ . 

  
Even as they finished Donghyuck last, left his skeleton with the rest, Taeyong felt hungry, still. He turned to Dongyoung. The woman looked at him from the opening in the door. She nodded once for yes.  


**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween~~


End file.
